Science and Technology Law Commons^™

Brief For The R Street Institute And Engine Advocacy As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents, Charles Duan

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Under 35 U.S.C. § 102, an inventor may not obtain a patent on an invention that has been “on sale” for more than a year. The question is whether, from this so-called on-sale bar, certain classes of sales should be exempted— sales under a confidentiality agreement, in Petitioner’s view; and sales to those other than the ultimate customers, according to the government.

A Prescription For Biopharmaceutical Patents: A Cure For Inter Partes Review Ailments, Alex A. Jurisch

Seattle University Law Review

The patent system in the United States was forever changed with the introduction of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (AIA) in September of 2011. The AIA brought sweeping changes to American patent law in order to align the U.S. with much of the rest of the world by changing the invention priority from a “first to invent” to a “first to file” system. The first section of this note will provide a brief overview of the substance of inter partes reviews and some of the most critical negatives that have become apparent since 2013. The second section of this Note …

The Mystery Of Section 253(B), Matthew Gagnier

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

In 2014, Elon Musk, the renowned and socially-minded CEO of Tesla Motors, Inc., posted a blog on Tesla’s website that stated the company would be freeing up many of its patents involved in the creation of the company’s electric cars to any interested party. Yet again, Musk astounded the public by choosing the betterment of society over corporate profits—stirring up a more positive image than any other corporate personality. But there are numerous questions that Musk’s positive PR have drowned out: Where can you access the patents?; How did freeing up the patents get past the other executive officers and …

Emerging Technologies Challenging Current Legal Paradigms, W. Keith Robinson, Joshua T. Smith

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

U.S. patent law has made assumptions about where new inventions will be created, who will create them, and how they will be infringed. Throughout history, emerging technologies have challenged these paradigms. This decade’s emerging technologies will allow humans to create in virtual worlds, connect billions of every day devices via the Internet, and use artificial intelligence to invent across technology fields. If countries like the U.S. wish to encourage inventors to seek patent protection in these emerging areas, then a paradigm shift in the law must occur. Specifically, the law must clarify patent eligibility, recognize the increasing role of artificial …

The Experimental Use Exception To Patent Infringement: Do Universities Deserve Special Treatment?, Elizabeth A. Rowe

Maine Law Review

Inventor Ivan owns a patent on a new Gizmo. He has spent a substantial portion of his time and resources to develop the Gizmo. He has also spent thousands of dollars on his patent attorneys to obtain the patent. Ivan had to wait over two years for the patent application to be processed and approved. But it was all worth it. Our patent laws grant Ivan a negative right-the right to exclude others from practicing his invention during the period of the patent. The local university is using Ivan's invention to further its own research. The university's research will allow …

Adoption Of The Bayh-Dolye Act In Developed Countries: Added Presure For A Broad Research Exemption In The United States?, Michael S. Mireles

Maine Law Review

Numerous developed countries, most if not all members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), including Japan, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Finland, have or are considering adopting legislation similar to the Bayh-Dole Act. These countries apparently believe that passage of legislation similar to the Bayh-Dole Act will lead to the transfer of government funded research results from the university laboratory to the marketplace and other economic activity. In the United States, the birthplace of the Bayh-Dole Act (the Act), it is not entirely clear whether its passage is the direct result …

3d Bioprinting Patentable Subject Matter Boundaries, Tabrez Y. Ebrahim

Seattle University Law Review

3D bioprinting combines emerging 3D printing technologies with synthetic biology. The promise of 3D bioprinting technology is to fabricate organs for transplantation, treat burn victims with in vivo skin repair, and create wearable microbiomes. 3D bioprinting can successively build, repair, or reproduce living human cells. This capability challenges eligible subject matter doctrine in U.S. patent law because the law has no brightline standard for patent eligibility for nature-based products. As 3D bioprinting technologies mature, U.S. patent law will need to respond to situations where living and nonliving worlds merge. This Article proposes a “Mixed-Scanned-Transformed” standard to supplement U.S. patent law’s …

Use Of Mediation To Recover Rights To Our Genes, Rachel Albert

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Patent Arbitration: The Underutilized Process For Resolving International Patent Disputes In The Pharmaceutical And Biotechnology Industries, Alessandra Emini

Arbitration Law Review (2009 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Data-Generating Patents, Brenda M. Simon, Ted Sichelman

Northwestern University Law Review

Patents and trade secrets are often considered economic substitutes. Under this view, inventors can decide either to maintain an invention as a trade secret or to seek a patent and disclose to the public the details of the invention. However, a handful of scholars have recognized that because the patent disclosure requirements are not always rigorous, inventors may sometimes be able to keep certain aspects of an invention secret, yet still receive a patent to the invention as a whole. Here, we provide further insight into how trade secrets and patents may act as complements. Specifically, we introduce the concept …

Private Or Public Right? Who Should Adjudicate Patentability Disputes And Is The Current Scheme Really Constitutional?, Jasmyne M. Baynard

Marquette Intellectual Property Law Review

“The patent bargain is the foundation upon which the patent system is built: in exchange for protections for an invention, the inventor agrees to make public their inventions so that others may build upon it.” The patent bargain creates a presumption of protection for the inventors, yet categorizing the patent a public right or a private right has diminished expectations for inventors and confusion for the masses. On October 11, 2016, the Supreme Court denied two petitions for writ of certiorari that challenged the constitutionality of Patent Trial and Review Board proceedings on the basis of the patent owner’s Seventh …

Patent Protection For Crispr: An Elsi Review, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

The revolutionary gene-editing technology, CRISPR, has raised numerous ethical, legal, and social concerns over its use. The technology is also subject to an increasing patent thicket that raises similar issues concerning patent licensing and research development. This essay reviews several of these challenges that have come to the fore since CRISPR’s development in 2012. In particular, the lucre and complications that have followed the CRISPR patent dispute may affect scientific collaboration among academic research institutions. Relatedly, universities’ adoption of “surrogate licensors” may also hinder downstream research. At the same time, research scientists and their institutions have also used CRISPR patents …

The Rise Of Ethical License, Christi Guerrini, Margaret Curnette, Jacob S. Sherkow, Christopher Scott

Other Publications

The Broad Institute's recent licensing of its gene editing patent portfolio demonstrates how licenses can be used to restrict controversial applications of emerging technologies while society deliberates their implications.

Crispr, Surrogate Licensing, And Scientific Discovery, Jorge Contreras, Jacob S. Sherkow

Other Publications

Several research institutions are embroiled in a legal dispute over the foundational patent rights to CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology, and it may take years for their competing claims to be resolved. But even before ownership of the patents is finalized, the institutions behind CRISPR have wasted no time capitalizing on the huge market for this groundbreaking technology by entering into a series of licensing agreements with commercial enterprises. With respect to the potentially lucrative market for human therapeutics and treatments, each of the key CRISPR patent holders has granted exclusive rights to a spinoff or "surrogate" company formed by the institution …

Inventive Steps: The Crispr Patent Dispute And Scientific Progress, Jacob S. Sherkow

Other Publications

Recent decisions by patent offices in the USA and Europe concerning the revolutionary gene-editing technology, CRISPR/Cas9, have shed light on the importance — and puzzles — of one particular area of patent law: “nonobviousness”, as it known in the USA, or, in Europe, the “inventive step”. Patent law does not always neatly align itself with the realities of biological research. But these competing decisions from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the European Patent Office have put those differences on parade. Unpacking these standards for CRISPR tell us a lot about how advances in biology are actually made — …

Patent Law's Reproducibility Paradox, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

Clinical research faces a reproducibility crisis. Many recent clinical and preclinical studies appear to be irreproducible; their results cannot be verified by outside researchers. This is problematic for not only scientific reasons but legal ones: patents grounded in irreproducible research appear to fail their constitutional bargain of property rights in exchange for working disclosures of inventions. The culprit is likely patent law’s doctrine of enablement. Although the doctrine requires patents to enable others to make and use their claimed inventions, current difficulties in applying the doctrine mitigate or even actively dissuade reproducible data in patents. This Article assesses the difficulties …

Useless Information: Genetic Patenting, The Usefulness Requirement, And The Effect On The “Big Freeze”, David T. Bennett

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This note considers the current state of affairs regarding patentability in the field of biotechnology, especially that of genes and DNA. Part II gives a brief background of patents in general, including the requirements that must be met for a patent to be granted, the way in which the patent process works, and the options available to a patent holder once a patent has been granted. Part III explores the history of biotechnology patents. Part IV takes a look at the relationship between patents and biotechnology, and sheds light on some of the common arguments both in favor of and …

The Mayo Framework Is Bad For Your Health, Christopher M. Holman

Faculty Works

This Article begins by providing a brief historical retrospective of the development of the patent eligibility doctrine, and then delves into the related questions of: (1) what are the Supreme Court’s policy objectives for the recent reinvigoration of the patent eligibility doctrine; and (2) has it achieved those objectives? The article then discusses three important out-standing questions regarding the application of the new test for patent eligibility: (1) what constitutes a natural phenomenon; (2) what constitutes an inventive step; and (3) what, if any, role does preemption play in the analysis? The article then provides four examples of recent lower …

Pursuit Of Profit Poisons Collaboration, Jacob S. Sherkow

Other Publications

The CRISPR–Cas9 patent battle demonstrates how overzealous efforts to commercialize technology can damage science.

Pursuit Of Profit Poisons Collaboration, Jacob S. Sherkow

Other Publications

The CRISPR–Cas9 patent battle demonstrates how overzealous efforts to commercialize technology can damage science.

The Human Genome: A Patenting Dilemma, Pamela Docherty

Akron Law Review

This Comment will address the conflict between the U.S. patent laws and biotechnology by focusing on the NIH patent application.

The first part of this Comment discusses the objectives and statutory requirements of the patent system, which the NIH application purportedly did not meet. Next, this Comment focuses on the debate between NIH and its detractors. It explains NIH's reasons for its actions and discusses the criticisms leveled at the agency. Finally, this Comment presents solutions to the problems that have been uncovered by this debate regarding the patentability of genes.

Legal Nature And Contractual Conditions In Know-How Transactions, Carlos M. Correa

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Causation And Harm In A Multicomponent World, Bernard Chao

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

On September 17, 2015, the Federal Circuit issued another decision in the epic Apple v. Samsung smartphone war. This was the fourth court decision in the ongoing saga to deal with injunctions. Apple IV explained the level of proof necessary to satisfy the "causal nexus" requirement. This requirement had emerged as a response to patent litigations involving products with thousands of features, the vast majority of which are unrelated to the asserted patent. To prove a causal nexus, patentees seeking an injunction have to do more than just show that the infringing product caused the patentee irreparable harm. The harm …

Patent Law Challenges For The Internet Of Things, W. Keith Robinson

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In the near future, emerging technologies will allow billions of everyday devices to be connected via the Internet. This increasingly popular phenomenon is referred to as the Internet of Things (“IoT”). The IoT is broadly defined as technology that allows everyday devices to (1) become “smart” and (2) communicate with other smart devices. Estimates indicate that the market for smart devices, such as wearables, will grow to $70 billion dollars in the next ten years. Like many other emerging technologies, the entrepreneurs and companies developing these applications will seek patent protection for their inventions. In turn, the current U.S. patent …

Promoting Progress: A Qualitative Analysis Of Creative And Innovative Production, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter is based on data collected as part of a larger qualitative empirical study based on face-to-face interviews with artists, scientists, engineers, their lawyers, agents and business partners. Broadly, the project involves the collecting and analysis of these interviews to understand how and why the interviewees create and innovate and to make sense of the intersection between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity from the ground up. This chapter specifically investigates the concept of “progress” as discussed in the interviews. “Promoting progress” is the ostensible goal of the intellectual property protection in the United States, but what …

Machine Learning And Law, Harry Surden

Publications

This Article explores the application of machine learning techniques within the practice of law. Broadly speaking “machine learning” refers to computer algorithms that have the ability to “learn” or improve in performance over time on some task. In general, machine learning algorithms are designed to detect patterns in data and then apply these patterns going forward to new data in order to automate particular tasks. Outside of law, machine learning techniques have been successfully applied to automate tasks that were once thought to necessitate human intelligence — for example language translation, fraud-detection, driving automobiles, facial recognition, and data-mining. If performing …

The Natural Complexity Of Patent Eligibility, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

It has long been assumed that the doctrine of patent eligibility’s prohibition of patents on “laws of nature,” “natural phenomena,” and “products of nature” rests on legalistic interpretations of those terms. But there is good reason to doubt this assumption. Since the doctrine’s inception, the Supreme Court has yet to provide any framework, formula, or factors explaining these “natural” terms. Rather, the Court has increasingly fixated on a list of scientific tropes, such as gravity, the heat of the Sun, and extracted metals, that it believes are true examples of “natural laws,” “phenomena,” and “products.”

An actual examination of scientific …

Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights In Computers And Computer Programs: Recent Developments , Alan C. Rose

Pepperdine Law Review

The following article examines the protection offered to computers and computer programs, under the various applicable patent, copyright and trade secret laws. Concerning patent protection; the author discusses the history and current status of the patent laws, and analyzes in detail the landmark case of Diamond v. Diehr. Discussed also is an analysis of copyright protection for computer programs, offered by the 1980 amendments to section 117 of the 1976 Copyright Act; which paved the way for the increased protection.

What If Extinction Is Not Forever?, Jacob S. Sherkow

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Gene Patents And The Implications For Medicine, Jacob S. Sherkow, Henry Greely

Other Publications

The Supreme Court decision in Myriad Genetics struck down the patenting of human genomic DNA. What will this mean for genetic testing and medicine, more broadly?